With two days left to finalize the state’s budget, editorial boards are again amplifying the call by watchdogs for Governor Cuomo and the legislature to restore integrity to the state’s contracting process.

5 is the number of years Alicia Glen was the Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development under Mayor Bill de Blasio. She joins the podcast to reflect on her tenure as Deputy Mayor, the state of the city in 2014, where it stands now, and where it should be heading.

25,000 is the number of jobs that would have been created under a now-defunct deal with Amazon to create a second headquarters in Long Island City, Queens. Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of the Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), discusses the deal and how its failure may impact New York City's economic competitiveness.

Amazon has committed to creating 25,000 full-time high-paying jobs over ten years, investing approximately $2.5 billion, and building 4 million square feet of office space at its new headquarters in Long Island City, with the possibility of expanding to 8 million square feet and 40,000 jobs. To facilitate this investment, Amazon will receive benefits of up to $1.7 billion from New York State and $1.8 billion from New York City. This blog explains the incentive package provided by the State and City and offers five takeaways about the deal and its lessons for future economic development policy.

The purpose of today’s public hearing is to discuss regulations recently proposed by the Authorities Budget Office to impose additional disclosure requirements on local industrial development agencies (IDAs).

The Governor should veto ten bills that would expand the State’s economic development programs. Three of the bills would expand or enrich existing programs, six bills would create a new targeted program, and one bill would create a new broad program.